GW LA Sidestories SNOWDROPS
by LoveyouHateyou
Summary: Zechs resting uneasily, catching his breath between his memories and the future - what will win?
1. Chapter 1

**GW LA Sidestories - SNOWDROPS**

**Disclaimer:** Characters are not mine except for Alex. Story is for entertainment only, not for profit.  
><strong>Warnings:<strong> Valid for all chapters - references to male/male affection.  
><strong>Summary:<strong> Zechs resting uneasily between his memories and the future - what will win?

xxx

**1. Turncoat**

_It hurts. How can it still hurt? It hurts to bad, I cannot breathe..._

His brow pressed against the cold surface of the Gundanium shard, Zechs did not stir when he heard steps. He could guess it was Marimaia – nobody else would disturb him in this place, in this mood that still overwhelmed him when he was too exhausted to fight it.

Her hand settled lightly on his arm, and then she leaned against him. She felt warm and light. Fragile, it drifted through his mind, and he almost laughed. Not too long ago, he'd never have allowed her to see him like this.

"I made coffee," she said. "You know, I envy you. I wish I'd be in love with someone."

He clenched his hand against the scorched metal. A deep, gasping breath filled his lungs with air. The scent of spring, heady and damp. The touch of sun on his skin...

His eyes were burning dry.

Marimaia raised her hand and laid it on his shoulder.

He swallowed hard and straightened. Slowly, he smoothed out his jumper, feeling his body like that of a stranger.

_How long has it been since... Years. Ages. And yet, I dream of you, every night, with every breath..._

They walked back to the house in silence. Around them, the white-barked birchtrees of the driveway rose into a sky of endless blue, and birdsong filled the air that was still cool. Mud squelched under their boots as they stepped on clods of grass to avoid the waterlogged potholes that dotted the ruts. Through the withered yellow stalks of the previous year pushed the wiry green of new growth.

"You know everything about me," Marimaia said when they stepped into the vestibule to take their dirty boots off. "But I know almost nothing."

"You know I'm a turncoat," he said, without bitterness. "For all it's worth, I'm sorry. For what I did to your family, to Whitefang, to your uncle." (1)

He went to the drawing room. The scent of fresh coffee laced the cold air, mingling with the smell of ashes from the fireplace. The table was set for two. He had let Marimaia revive the house by bringing back the things he had banished in an attempt to drive out his ghosts: the old furniture, paintings, wallhangings, carpets and curtains. Even the piano was back in a corner of the library, but he had not touched it, had not dared to rekindle _that_ kind of pain. (2)

It was the table, long and heavily carved, where he had sat with Treize for their last meal together in the house. (3) A bleached linen runner, its fine, dense weave embroidered in red-and-black crosstitch showing stylized cockerels and strawhorses (4), was draped across a corner of the dark wood and set with white china and European-style coffee cups and saucers. It was an odd contrast, Zechs thought, typical of the Khushrenadas.

"I want you to tell me about him," Marimaia said into the quiet clinking of silver on porcelain as he stirred sugar into his coffee. "I want to understand-" She broke off, searching for the right words. "Get to know... that man," she said at last, uncertainly.

Zechs leaned back and blew over his coffee. He watched whisps of steam rise from the cup and tremors running over the dark surface. He wished, for a heartbeat, that his world would shrink to that: small, black, definite.

She laid her hand on his. It surprised him how firm her touch was, even her words were hesitant. "I am asking you to open a door for me."

He glanced up. "I promised you'd not be stuck here forever," he said, evading an answer. "I could take you to Moscow. I have business there, and you might like the trip. I'll sort out your travel permit with Une."

xxx

Clods of snow where still clinging to the edges of roads and footpaths. Floes of dirty ice drifted on the churning, dark-brown currents of the Moskva, its enormity tamed and pulsing through the city's concreate heart. Zechs, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his woollen coat and his face half-covered by a thick scarf, nodded at a bench.

"He called the hotel limousine to collect us from the Bolshoi. (5) He'd taken me to watch the Nutcracker – of all things. (6) I remember being cross and embarassed but he was having a great time, and I didn't want to spoil it. We had a few drinks at the theatre bar before going to watch the ballet, and I think he was more drunk than he let on. Afterwards, he asked the driver to drop us off by the river so we could walk the rest of the way – twenty minutes perhaps – to our hotel. I thought he was crazy – he was wearing this ridiculously expensive sable coat, (7) and the streetlights here were all smashed in. It was in the middle of winter and freezing, but he insisted that we should sit down here to look at the moon. He had a bottle of vodka in his coat pocket. We drank it all, and I was worried that he might fall into the river, or go to sleep. So I tried to call a cab, but he kept... pushing and hugging me, and then he grabbed the mobile and threw it into the water."

_Hugging – if that had been all, I'd been able to cope just fine, but your hands were all over me, under my clothes, and it was spine-chillingly cold but not where you mauled my-_

He drew a quick, sharp breath. "I was mad at him but he just laughed and kissed me." A wry smile tugged at Zechs' lips. "He had a way... I mean, perhaps it was my fault. I always gave in to him. He was shit-" He shook his head. "I mean, he was very drunk then."

_And often enough after that._

Marimaia hooked her arm under his. Surprised, he let her, oddly grateful for the small gesture.

"That's how it is, to be in love?" she asked quietly.

He shrugged. "That's how it was with us."

_Ups and downs. This whole, crazy rollercoster, our lives lived in an instant... what's left now? Ah, yes. Waiting. I'll just wait._

"And then?"

Her voice drew him out of his brooding, and he carried on, images drifting through his mind like a film as he talked. "The hotel was a tatty old thing, one of those towerblocks they'd built at the end of the twentieth century. (8) Grey and worn, but clean. Gostiniza Pushkin." Zechs smiled weakly. "He liked it. He'd booked two rooms, to make things easier, he said (9), but he made sure that they were linked. Of course he liked my room better, so he stayed."

_The tap on the shower was broken, and we got the carpet wet when we walked over from the other bathroom. We slept with each other – quite difficult after what we'd drunk. _

He sat down on the bench and watched a few crows, pecking in the snow around an overturned rubbish bin on the opposite embankment. "Later," he said quietly, "when he'd sobered up enough, he was making phone calls, and I realised he'd gone to Moskow not for the ballet, but for business. It wasn't really a surprise. Years later I found out that he'd made his will and left it with his lawyers." (10) He shook his head. "I mean, back then... he couldn't have known. He couldn't have-" He broke off, surprised by how sharp it still cut him – the old, neverending, ever-new pain that gripped his chest and made it hard to breathe, as if a hot knife was cutting through him.

Marimaia sat down next to him, wrapping her arms around herself against the chill. "He was a soldier?"

Zechs drew a deep, cold breath to restart his mind. "Yes. But that wasn't all."

xxx

**NOTES:**

1 - LA Strangers ICE ON THE HEART  
>2 - LA Burning<br>3 - LA Winter  
>4 - Home-made linen and the kind of embroidery described are part of Russian folk art. The thinner the linen, the denser the weave, and the whiter the cloth, the greater the value. The kind of needlepointcross-stitch described here is typical; again, the smallest stitches were the most priced ones.  
>5 - Bolshoi Theatre – famed for its ballet.<br>6 - The Nutcracker is often considered a children's ballet.  
>7 - Treize is showing off his wealth, in a style that is a touch vulgar, demonstrating his power as a landowner, military man and political animal, combined with new-money confidence,: sable fur being expensive, rare, 'incorrect' and old-fashioned.<br>8 - Like the Lomonosov University or Hotel Moskva.  
>9 - To avoid being confronted about two men wanting to share the same room.<br>10 - LA Winter, LA My Rose


	2. Chapter 2

**2. At War**

**All warnings and disclaimer from Chapter 1 apply.**

_Irritably, Zechs wrapped a towel around his middle. "My shower's broken. There's no hot water. It's like on-base." _

_Treize leaned in the door that linked the two rooms. Swaying a little, he was busy unbuttoning his shirt, his belt and waistband already undone. He was flushed from drink and the change from the cold outside into the overheated hotel, his cheeks glowing fiercely, an unhealthy match for his reddish hair that hung messily into his face. He laughed. "I'll share if you say please." He seized Zechs around the waist, dropped to his knees and took his hands. With a slanted, vodka-glazed gaze at Zechs, he kissed them. "Please," he rasped smokily, his lips moving damply against the inside of Zechs' wrist. _

"_I thought you wanted ME to beg."_

"_Oh..." Treize shook his head drunkenly. "But... ay, Miliusha, you never..." He frowned, as if searching for words and then finished, impatiently, "So I'll have to."_

_Zechs was shaking, feeling hot and oddly elated. "Not enough."_

_Without another word, Treize buried his face in Zechs' middle and began to talk, in a hoarse, soft singsong – a string of endearments, pleas and promises in his mother tongue, followed by a rather crude and very explicit suggestion that ended in "until you're blue-"_

_It was too much. Zechs, strumming with restless want, yanked him up. "You're too drunk!"_

_Treize flashed an oddly sharp-edged smile at him. "Try me," he rasped._

_They showered quickly, and afterwards, skin cool and damp, they slept with each other on Zechs' bed that was still covered with its day-blanket. Tempered by drink and relaxed from the shower, Zechs was yielding and ticklish, Treize hungry and impatient because the alcohol slowed him down. Taking much longer than usual, and swearing under his breath, he managed at last to find release, with Zechs laughing quietly, shaking under him even as he held Treize fast. _

_Treize was shining with sweat when he dropped next to Zechs and wrapped him into a hard embrace. "You weren't very gracious with me," he groused, flushed and breathless._

"_No? I let you-"_

_Treize quickly kissed him silent. "You know I love you, don't you?"_

_And Zechs, meeting his expectant gaze, nodded. "Yes."_

"_Good." Treize bedded his head in the crook of Zechs' shoulder and put his arm across Zechs' chest. He was snoring before Zechs drifted off._

_xxx_

_Sleep-heavy, Zechs turned. His foot felt cold, and he pulled it under the thick down duvet before realising that the French doors to the balcony stood open, letting in the frosty, peach-grey dawn._

_Treize was leaning on the balustrade, his back to the room as he watched the horizon brighten slowly over the Moskow skyline. A girl was skating on a swept stretch of the frozen Moskva, a small black dog yapping and jumping around her as she inscribed serene circles and arches into the scarred ice. As the neon glare of the city night paled, a moment of hushed silence fell._

_Treize was wearing his sable coat, dark and glossy against the wintry pallor outside, and soft-soled, embroidered felt boots lined with rabbit fur that the hotel had provided for its well-to-do guests._

_Zechs rose and wrapped himself into a blanket as he joined him. He leaned against Treize. "I was cold."_

_Treize half-turned and smiled at him. "You looked peaceful." He kissed Zechs' cheek. "Beautiful."_

_Zechs shrugged. "Not nearly as good as you."_

_Treize gazed at him, a half-smile lingering on his lips. "Ay, Miliusha moy," he murmured, as if talking to himself, "I never thought... I never dreamed I'd be this lucky."_

_"Tre, what are you on about? Let's go back to bed."_

_Treize nodded but stayed put. "Have you ever wondered whether wishes can come true if we wish hard enough?"_

_"Rubbish. I have a headache."_

_Treize wrapped his arms around Zechs, catching him in his blanket cocoon, all but immobilising him. "Listen," he said, and then, slipping into his native tongue, "_Listen (Listen, / if stars are lit / it means - there is someone who needs it. / It means - someone wants them to be, / that someone deems those specks of spit / magnificent…_"**[1]** He carried on reciting in a quiet, low sing-song, heavy with emotion, until – having spoken the last line of the poem – he fell silent. _

_Zechs, unsure what to say, shifted uncomfortably, and Treize let go of him. "My father had this book, small, covered in brown waxcloth. It was in the things they sent back to us after he was killed in action. He'd folded the corners of a few pages, they looked worn and yellow – the book had been printed in the 1940s. There was a dry rose from the house between the pages. I found my mother reading and re-reading..." He leaned in to kiss Zechs' nose and laughed as Zechs wrinkled it instinctively. "Zhdi menya**[2]**, Miliusha moy. "__Wait for me, wait for me, and I'll return, only wait very much…"_

_"Zhdatj? What for?" Zechs said, his voice heavy with sleep. "You're not going anywhere, are you? I think you're still drunk." He freed himself of the duvet. "I love you. You know that. I don't like the mood you're in – what's up, Tre?"_

_Treize swallowed, his throat bobbing as his gaze swept back over the frozen river. The girl crouched to coddle the little dog, and the sky was turning pastel pink as morning rose over the __city. "We'll be at war soon."_

_xxx_

**NOTES:**

[1] Mayakovski – _Послушайте! / Ведь, если звезды зажигают - значит - это кому-нибудь нужно? - Значит - кто-то хочет, чтобы они были? - Значит - кто-то называет эти плевочки / жемчужиной?...  
><em>[2] Simonov – Wait for me (Wait for me, and I'll return, only wait very much [...])[2] Simonov – _Жди меня, и я вернусь. Только очень жди…_


	3. Chapter 3

**3. Stars**

**All warnings and disclaimer from Chapter 1 apply.**

"I thought he meant the colonies," Zechs said. "Now I wonder whether he meant us. Me and him. And all that stuff about wishing for something – I thought he'd lost it. But he was like that, one moment all hard edges, the next sentimental and making a fool of himself."

Marimaia drew a deep breath and let it go in a cloud of frost-white steam. "Does it help?"

"What?"

"Talking. Does it help you?"

Zechs rose. "It's getting cold. We should go."

She joined him, just keeping up with his long strides. "Well?"

"Sometimes," he said. A small pause, then, "Not really."

She stuffed her hands deep into her pockets. "You know what gets me most? That I didn't have the chance to meet him."

"Regret," Zechs said, clenching his hands. "It's unpleasant."

She shot him a glance. "You're joking, right? I mean, c'mon, unpleasant?"

He made no reply.

She huffed. "You know, my grandfather... I sat in his board meetings when I was two, with a pile of toys and this pen – I think it was a present from one of his bigwigs. Gold, not just plated, with loads of glitzy stones on it. He bought me clothes, Earth imports, specially made, not available on our patch unless you knew the right people. He took me to the park and the pool. Thinking about it, he made less fuss with my mother and my uncle." In passing, she kicked a clump of iced snow; it burst in a cloud of white. "Those letters from Trei... I mean, that man... my father wrote to my mother... can you tell me something?"

"I'll try."

"No bullshit."

Zechs glanced at her. "No bullshit," he confirmed, slightly hesitant.

"Do you think he loved her?"

Zechs let his gaze slip into the whiteness of the night, not quite winter anymore and yet spring seemed to be reluctant to arrive. "He didn't talk about it with me," he said at last, "but I think he... liked her."

A puff of white breath came from her frost-reddened nose. "Right. And what was so special? I mean anything he couldn't have found elsewhere?"

"Something I could never give him," came Zechs' reply, cool and quick this time. "You."

There was a small break, before she said weakly, "But he loved you."

"I don't know." He sounded weary.

_Wrong. I know that you weren't lying about that one. But it was different for me. You were my god, and when you decided to blow yourself up in that idiotic duel, I think my life went with you… Worst, perhaps, that I'll never know if you did it on purpose, or whether it was stupidity… this idea of honour… but that wasn't like you, not quite, not with so much living still ahead of us, so many plans, ideas… It must have been something else. If it was only for me, I couldn't be sure, but you'd not have gone for it without some hope at least, because you still had plans for the future… Until then, I didn't know how empty I was. _

She stopped, and he realised they were close to the hotel that rose, square and lined with balconies, against the soaring skyline, the glare of the city soaking into the night, turning it muddy orange. "You don't? Aren't you still waiting? And what if you weren't?"

He looked at her for a moment, and then a slow smile crossed his lips. "I'd be dead."

She gripped his arm, her thin fingers digging into his muscles even through the thick coat-sleeve. "My point."

For a moment, they stood in silence, before he said, "Not everything that's in the news is wrong. He had... unpleasant sides. He could be cruel. Nasty. Arrogant." He drew a deep, slow breath. "He also had those ideas... grandiose, idealistic dreams, and he was able to set them into motion."

_And you'd forget... no, not that, you'd push aside everything else. Worries, scruples. Even love. And still... you and I, we were made for each other. Isn't that true as well? A perfect match, no matter whether we were sleeping together, working, or fighting each other. _

xxx

They went inside. Marimaia caught Zechs' glance at the bar that was still open, across the old-fashioned foyer full of mirrored square pillars, giant potted plants, and deep red carpets across which threadbare paths showed which way most feet crossed them. It smelled of stale cigarette smoke, in spite of the brass 'no smoking' sign next to the bar.

"Let's have a coffee," Marimaia suggested, taking her scarf off. "Did you see that guy in the theatre box next to ours? Was he ogling us? I wonder what he was thinking."

Zechs shook his head. "Whatever it was, it probably was wrong."

He went to order two coffees, rose-petal jam, milk-bread and cream. Marimaia sat down in one of he squat, dark leather seats that were grouped against the floor-to-ceiling window at the front of the foyer, with tiny tables of green marble between them. From here, they could see the Moskva with its ice-laden brown waters and snowy embankments.

Marimaia gazed outside. She nearly disappeared in the deep, worn-out upholstery of her seat. "Do you remember Alex?"

Zechs – about to sit down – patted his coat pocket. "I forgot something," he said, without acknowledging her question. He needed a moment to think, to gather himself – hearing her mentioning the young man's name had caught him out. He went back to the bar, ordered a double vodka, no ice, and returned to the table with his drink, bracing himself.

"Alex," Marimaia gave him a sideways glance, "from the Mars project. The guy you slept with a few times."

Zechs took a deep, hasty gulp of his drink. He let it burn down his throat and warm his stomach before he set it down. "How do you know who – I mean, my personal life?"

She pulled a face. "Rumours? You think 'cos I'm not allowed to read or hear the news, I'm stupid?"

"I never thought that."

"Sure. I heard he's asked for a transfer to Earth."

"You heard-" He broke off as the waiter appeared with an colourfully enamelled tray and coffee in tea glasses with filigree holders, the marmalade and cream in silver pots, and the bread on a lacquered plate painted with stylised, round pink roses.

"I overheard Une talking on her mobile, last time she was at the estate. I think she wanted me to hear it."

Zechs took another mouthful of vodka, swirled it around and let it etch his palate.

"You raced him, at the base," Marimaia said. "And you thrashed him. Did you know that people were betting? Odds were against him. No surprise, really."

Zechs held up his glass; the waiter appeared with a refill and took the empty glass away. For a moment, Zechs caught Marimaia's gaze, but he couldn't read it. He thought that he'd thrashed Alex in bed, too, that they'd had a wild night and a few more after that, with him doing to Alex what he had always wanted to do to Treize, before breaking things off. Alex had not pleaded, and Zechs had been half-relieved, half-puzzled that he'd let it go so easily.

_Not so easy now..._

"We had an argument," he said, knowing he sounded erratic, beyond caring. "Treize and I, and he raced me..."

xxx


	4. Chapter 4

**4. Bully**

**All warnings and disclaimer from Chapter 1 apply.**

_Zechs, in black sports pants and a loose fitting tee-shirt, leaned against the door of the sports hall outside the base, watching the lone runner rounding the airfield. _

_Restless and jittery; he had working out instead of spending another night rolling __sleeplessly between the sheets, wondering how he should decide. He felt buzzed __and energised again, almost his usual self without Zero in his head. He thought that Treize had to be truly frustrated to take to bouts of racing again, usually very early in the artificial twilight of the field, before the base buzzed back to full activity._

_When Treize ran, he dropped all pretence at elegance and refinement, to move with power and aggression. He was homing in, and Zechs unfolded his arms. Wearing the same OZ issue exercise kit as his troops, Treize appeared no different from any of his soldiers. _

_Treize let the wall take the momentum of his end-sprint. For a few __seconds, he could not speak, merely sucked air in, breathing in hard, fast puffs. He had pushed himself to his limits, and – Zechs thought – quite possibly a bit beyond._

_"New record time?" he teased, while Treize bent, braced his hands on his knees and __fought to regain control over his racing pulse, pounding heart and hurting lungs. His hair __was in sticky disarray for once, Zechs registered with a twinge of amusement, and His __Grace looked flushed and a tad annoyed. Perhaps he had wanted to run faster. Treize always wanted more, better, faster, perfection._

_"Ah... I'm a bit out of it..." Treize wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and smiled up at __Zechs. "! watched you, earlier."_

_Zechs stared at him. Earlier? When? In his sleep, on the damn couch in Treize's office again, or in front of the CAD system, trying to work out a few kinks in the latest Mobile Suit they were building? Or – Zechs felt a slight hitch in his breathing – in the showers, or perhaps in the weights room, while he was working through his physical training programme? _

_"Are you snooping after me?"_

_Treize straightened. "You looked slack. Perhaps you need to work harder. Or smarter. More focus."_

_"Focus – I'm better than you at weights," Zechs growled, irritation knotting in his stomach. He had always found it difficult to resist Treize's goading._

_Treize raised his eyebrows, the corners of his mouth twisting down ever so slightly, his __brilliant eyes glittering knowingly. "I'm faster."_

_"I'll outrun you."_

_Treize raked back his dishevelled hair and rolled his shoulders. "Empty boasts-"_

_"We can try now," Zechs cut in crossly, "and then you tell me what I've done to tick you off."_

_The bright gaze rested on him for a split second longer before Treize turned towards the armory. "Why don't we run the assault course, in full field gear, eighty pounds load, standard infantry weapons, and oxygen. And then we could march across quadrants seven to ten and come back once we've checked the perimeter of the base in that area. Then we'll know."_

_He pressed his hand on the ID pad to unlock the door, yanked it open and disappeared into the storage room. Stunned, Zechs walked in after him, watching him pull clothes and field gear from the rows of shelves in the room reserved for the officers' kit. Treize paused to hurl a bundle of clothes at him, and he caught it against his chest._

"_Hurry, we don't have all day," Treize said, a spark of amusement in his eyes as he rid himself of his sports gear and began to don fatigues._

"_We'll need all day."_

"_I should sincerely hope that you are kidding me. This is no more than we expect our infantry to be capable of. You and I should be able to demonstrate." Treize tugged on the jacket and knelt to begin packing his backpack and webbing._

"_Do they demonstrate you strategy?" Zechs threw back as he crouched down and gathered his things from where Treize had heaped them on the concrete floor._

"_You know very well that this is not the point. Are you afraid of losing?"_

"_You damn well know I'm not, and I will outrun you," Zechs burst out, with a hard punch against the bulging pack._

xxx


	5. Chapter 5

**5. Journey Home**

**All warnings and disclaimer from chapter 1 apply.**

Marimaia folded her hands in her lap. Her knuckles whitened. "Who won?"

Zechs shrugged. "I did. He would have been working out earlier, and he'd been running already. He knew I would win."

"Then why did he do it?"

"His way of spending time with me. Like walking the dog: I needed out, he put me on a leash and let me run until he'd worn me out."

"You don't sound happy about it."

"Would you have been?"

"I don't know. If it was the only way..."

He glanced at her, then he shook his head. "I'm sorry."

She shrugged and reached for a teaspoon. He was not sure whether she wanted to shake something off or whether she meant to say 'never mind…'

For a while, they sat in silence. Marimaia stirred some cream into her coffee and ate some of the fragrant jam. Zechs drank his coffee black, with another shot of vodka. He felt the effect of the sharp drink at last, sounds fading as if blocked by cotton wool, his face growing slightly numb, and his head heavy. Suddenly he just wanted to go to sleep, pass out in a drunken neverland with nothing but silence around him.

He felt like running across a sinking ship, an old-fashioned, wood-planked steelhull that creaked and swayed violently beneath his feet, the bow drooping into the deep blue waters beneath, around, up to his throat; he slipped and fell, slid down without hold, clawed at the soaking, salt-washed planks, but something seized his shoulder, and he jerked, fought against it, broke its hold-

Marimaia stood a step away, head ducked, her hands up before her face. She was white, her lips pale. "I just shook you awake," she said nervously. "You were snoring, and the barman was giving us dirty looks."

By his feet lay the empty vodka glass. He bent to pick it up, and felt Zero pulse in his mind.

"I'm sorry," he said as she stepped into her room and was about to close her door. "I didn't mean to scare you."

Putting the chain on, she gave him a wary glance. "You do that all the time. I hope you sleep better now."

Xxx

They left as they'd arrived – by train. Une had signed off the travel permit for Marimaia under the condition that Zechs would not fly alone with the girl as his only passenger, and he found the idea of an armed security escort silly. So he had decided against flying altogether and booked a first-class compartment on the train. They had time, he thought, all the time in the world, more time than he cared to have…

While glancing out of the train window, he half-listened to the chatter of people crowding the corridor outside the first-class compartment he and Marimaia occupied for the journey from Moscow to Novosibirsk. From there it would be a day trek via one of the sturdy buses that were built at the same factory as the basic, enduring military lorries Preventers used for getting around in this part of the world. The main difference, Zechs thought, were the chassis and the paintwork. Finally they would take a horse-drawn sledge from the village to the estate. If all went well, they'd be travelling around five days.

Watching the landscape flow past felt strange to him. He had seen all of this before – abstracted, pressed into the web of co-ordinates and the neural computations of his Mobile Suit, or in layers of transparent colours showing physical characteristics, terrain, military details, information disassembled and re-stacked to form an array of images that could never have shown him what he saw now: Endless birch forests, black and white under their load of snow. After leaving the neon-tinted splendour of Moscow, the landscape looked stark and forbidding. The little villages the train passed through almost buried by snow, many of the houses built as had been done for centuries – ducked low, wooden beams, carved eaves, rickety fences and smoke rising slowly from blackened stacks as if from nowhere in all this whiteness.

It wasn't a fast journey. He spent his days lounging, feet up, on the bench that doubled as his bed, a narrow cot furnished with woollen blankets and a feather-filled pillow in a white linen envelope. In the morning, the coach attendant – a stern, uniformed lady with a prim bun of dark hair and a forever disapproving look on her round face – would knock to wake him and Marimaia. Muttering under her breath about late risers, she would order them out so she could make their beds into narrow sofas for the day; in the evening she would turn up to turn the sofas back into beds. When she realised that Zechs was able to speak Russian, she seemed surprised, and her grumbling stopped.

The attendant maintained a samovar in a tiny compartment of her own, near the end of the coach, where passengers could buy tea or hot water, borrow blankets, or get salted nuts or dried potato-snacks at reasonable prices. At the larger stations, the train would stop, to be boarded by Preventer guards who would check travel documents, and people could leave to walk around for a while. Invariably, just outside the station and away from the platform kiosks, there would be a group of older women selling all kinds of things, but mostly food: Fresh dark bread, its scent sweet and malty, mingling with the aroma of coal and wood-smoke in the freezing clear air; smoked meats and fish, ripe apples packed in straw, pickled beetroot, cucumbers in brine, potatoes boiled in their skins, pine nuts, and salted mushrooms. Stomping their feet in thick felt-boots, they would rub their mitten-clad hands and pull tighter their woollen scarves. In loud sing-song, they would offer their goods carefully set out on clean towels, in shallow crates or baskets.

Zechs liked the monotonous rattling of the train, the unusual slowness that at first had felt tedious. He had forced himself to sit still, not to pace the corridors of the carriages from one end of the train to the other. And – to his surprise – his impatience had thinned the further away from the cities they travelled. At night he slept without dreams, gently swayed by the rolling carriage. At the stops, he enjoyed climbing out into the snowy day, browsing through the wares and buying food to last for the next leg of the journey. To Marimaia, all this was not only new, but alien. She spent hours staring out of the window in silence. She trudged after Zechs when he left the train. He attracted glances wherever he went, in his long silverfox-coat and with his pale hair, his slightly accented way of talking and his haughty manner. Marimaia, in a dark wool coat and thick boots, her hands buried in her fur-lined pockets, and a wool scarf wrapped around head and shoulders, felt out of place.

"We'd have been to the colony and back already," she said when they had settled back after the last stop on their journey before arriving She spread her scarf over the edge of her sofa to let it dry, and wrapped her arms around herself. Hunched, she glanced outside again, her expression glum.

"This isn't a colony," Zechs said, fishing a bottle of vodka from his suitcase. "I'll get tea for us."

Xxx

Winter had returned with a fresh layer of snow and frost covering the barely thawed ground. The house received them with silence. A comfortable, wintry, homely kind of stillness suffused the cold rooms until Zechs broke it, clattering about with firewood. His breathing formed thick white clouds, and his nose felt bitingly cold, but with the smell of cold ash and applewood, memories came flooding back.

They hurt as badly as ever.

Xxx

After spending a restless night in Treize's old bed, Zechs made a fire in the library stove so that it would be warm when Marimaia came downstairs. Dawn greyed the sky beyond the silhouette of the shard at the end of the driveway, but it was still dark, and silence suffused the house, along with the scent of apple-wood and smoke.

She brought a flask of coffee and two mugs when she joined him.

"Funny," she said as she settled on the sofa, next to him but not close. "To see you like this."

His hands, flecked with soot, were resting in his lap, fingers linked firmly. He watched the sky change colour – from grey to dusky orange to coral red, flooding a layer of clouds until it faded into the pale, frosty light of a cold day. There was a long silence until he drew a long, deep breath to shake off the pressure in his chest. "We all grieve the same," he said quietly, "in a way."

"Really?" She mulled this over. "I don't think so. But perhaps most of us… grieve. We aren't really that different, right? I mean, I wish we were, but we are not."

He could not shake it off. It pained him to watch, to look at the beauty of the rising day and to be alone. It hurt less to look at Marimaia.

_Because nothing compares,_ he thought. _There is nothing like it – you and me._ _Why can't I just live with that?_

He rose. "Coffee? I'll get some."

xxx

It was odd to hear a knock on the house door. Zechs, about to go into the kitchen, went instead to fetch his handgun from the pocket of his coat that was hanging in the cloakroom by the door. When he opened, gun in hand, he froze. "Alex?"

"Hi," the young man before him said, his breath a cloud of white. Alex was almost as tall as Zechs, his face fresh in the spill of light from the foyer, his hair disshevelled.

xxx


	6. Chapter 6

**6. Alex**

**All warnings and disclaimer from chapter 1 apply.**

Xxx

Zechs stared at him. Alex. One of the new cadets he had met on the Mars project, and who had caught his eye because of his red hair and dimpled smile. Later, it was his deft, no-nonsense way of dealing with things: the algae ponds he was working on as a bio-technician, the coffee maker he was mending in Zechs' residential pod, and-

_No. Not going there. My coffee maker is broken… what a lame excuse for a chat-up line. He must have seen through it, and still..._

Zechs blinked. Alex was wearing civilian clothes and carrying a large rucksack, but a tiny silver badge on the collar of his sheepskin coat told Zechs that he was on duty. Zechs felt a sliver of relief and a touch of longing – an odd mix, familiar yet too weak to push him into action. Too small to breach the wall he'd built around himself. And then, with a start, he realised that Zero was silent inside his mind. For a moment, he felt blank, and then his thoughts started to turn again, only slowly gathering momentum.

_Waiting. As if it was waiting, like me… It and I, what are we waiting for?_

Alex smiled. Snowflakes were settling on his shoulders. "I thought I'd call. Seeing that I'm in the neighbourhood and all that."

"How?"

"Won't you let me in? It's too cold to talk out here."

"I didn't-" Zechs broke off.

Alex leaned close and kissed him on the cheek. "I missed you. D'you have any idea how much I missed you?"

He was solid and warm, with a bit of scratchy stubble on his face. He smelled of rough-cut tobacco and garlic, good aftershave, and a bit of vodka. Zechs felt numb, unprepared.

Alex' cold nose touched his ear. "Your samovar, is it leaking?"

Zechs cleared his throat. Before he could answer, Marimaia stepped behind him.

"It might need soldering," she said. "Did you walk all the way?"

"From the airstrip," Alex replied, adjusting his rucksack. "It's nice. No dust here."

Zechs moved aside. "Come in." He glanced at Marimaia. "Anything else?"

She shrugged and went back into the library. Alex took off his rucksack. "I can't believe I'm here," he said. "I mean-"

"I know. Want something to warm up?" Zechs went to get more coffee from a large, unadorned samovar in the kitchen. While pouring hot water over two tee eggs with ground coffee, he wondered whether Marimaia had known more than she let on, and his mind started forming the skeleton of an idea, a hypothesis he was going to bend and mould until it would take form and shape…

He added a generous shot of vodka to each mug. They settled in the drawing room, the fireplace still filled with ashes, a few embers glowing beneath, not enough to warm the room. For a while, Alex just gazed at the snow falling outside the French doors.

"It should be spring now," he said at last. "There's no way we can plough in time…"

"Your coffee's getting cold," Zechs reminded him, to break the moment. With his reddish hair and pale skin, Alex looked too much like a young Treize, although – Zechs thought – that's where the similarity ended. Alex was smart but he didn't have Treize's mind, his easy irony, or cool nonchalance. "Why are you here?"

Alex glanced at him. "You know I asked for a transfer? The chief went home for the holiday; I'm her security detail."

"Then you should be-"

"I wanted a couple of days to see my old people. And to talk to you."

"You're working."

"Just a little."

Zechs didn't want to ask what that meant. The grandfather-clock in the library was clanging softly. Outside, the winter light was fading into murky dusk. Snow kept falling in thick, soft flakes, wrapping the world in silence. As if it was shrinking, Zechs thought, until there was nothing left of it except this room, with the fire and the smells of old floorpolish and ash and smouldering applewood.

And Alex.

"I just wanted to know," Alex said, "if you're still interested."

Zechs swallowed. He had expected some directness, but he wasn't ready for this.

Alex watched him. His eyes were grey rather than blue, and his lips were softer than Treize's had been.

"You ruined your prospects," Zechs said, "by leaving the project."

Alex shrugged. "I had enough. You know my file. I studied farming, for heaven's sake. I'm an agronom, not a plumber. I don't want to spend my life growing green slime in liquid shit and fixing dodgy pumps. I missed working real soil, real fields. The smell of earth under the plough, and ripe wheat in summer."

"But you're not doing that now."

"It's likely that I won't go back with the chief. I've applied for a position as a teacher at the agricultural college in Gorotka. I think I'll get it – they liked my references. Perhaps the chief put a word in as well. The job comes with a flat on campus, two bedrooms, central heating, it even has a proper kitchen; the college estate is just out of town. It's a bit more openminded than around here, and it's not too far. There's a bus once a week."

"What about your parents?"

Alex turned the mug in his hands. Large, firm hands, Zechs thought, remembering with a rush of heat how they had felt on his skin.

"I'm going to see them," Alex said, his gaze drifting outside again. "And the rest of the family. I might not have a home anymore after that. Or a family."

"Alex…"

"It's not you. They should know."

"Isn't this pointless?"

Alex shook his head. "I don't want it to be like that every time. I don't want that kind of secrets. All that stuff about don't ask, don't tell, I had enough of it."

"But what about THEM?"

Alex looked at him. There was a moment of stillness before he drew a quick breath. "How many chances do we get?"

Zechs said nothing, and Alex gave him a quiet smile. "I need to be myself."

Xxx

They spent some time talking about the Mars project, then about how winter was much too long this year, and the need to buy in feed when prices were low, later in summer, to make up for the shortfall that a late harvest would cause. They moved from coffee with vodka to vodka without anything, and then they wrapped up because Zechs wanted to show Alex the new stock of horses he had bought. They saddled up and went for a ride through the forest. Beneath the snow and ice that still bound the earth beneath, they could hear the murmur of the brook that passed by the dacha.

Later, they went to have a steam bath in the sauna by the house. Alex groaned when Zechs mauled him through, massaging him from head to toe, but then Zechs sat down on the wooden slats of the steam bench, covered his lap with his hands, and closed his eyes.

He felt Alex settle next to him, then Alex' kiss on his shoulder, but he didn't stir, letting desire knot in his belly. It was strange to hold back like this, he thought, and different from giving in to every whim – it meant something, but he did not want to think further. So they stayed like that, in the damp, hot stillness, soaked with the aroma of pine needles and birch bark until it was time to cool off and get dressed.

Xxx

Zechs made a bed on the sofa in the library for Alex. In the morning, he thought that Alex had slept in, but then he heard laughter and Alex' and Marimaia's voices from the kitchen. He listened for a moment.

_Building snowmen… how can they talk about that? Strange to have people in the house…_

Alex' rucksack stood by the door, packed, the thick coat draped across. Zechs pulled on boots and a wadded jacket and stepped outside.

Xxx

Alex found him shovelling snow away from the French doors. "Hi."

Zechs paused, leaning on the handle of the shovel. His breath was flying in thick white clouds. "You need a lift?"

"I got the jeep on the airstrip. I might need snowshoes." Alex looked at him. "You know, the rumours about you and the General… I don't want to replace anyone. I don't need your money or anything. I just thought we'd clicked."

"I don't understand. What do you want?"

"I like you. Moods and all."

"Moods?"

Alex smiled, and Zechs remembered it had been that smile he'd found attractive more than anything, after a drink-soaked evening at the base, and even the morning afterwards, sober and hung-over. More than those sky-grey eyes. More than the well-muscled body that matched his height, or the tousled red-brown hair that was several shades more coppery than Treize's.

_More than all that moaning and grunting-_

He bit his lip. "I tried," he said. "I can't. Perhaps in time…"

"Time," Alex said, disappointment and hurt in his voice. "Right." He was about to turn when Zechs laid his hand on Alex' arm.

"If I want to get in touch…"

"The college," Alex said, "they'll keep my mail. I'll pick it up once everything is sorted."

He was about to stomp off when Zechs said, in spite of himself, "You could come over for Easter."

Alex paused, gazing at him as if trying to read his mind. Zechs glared back. "If you get leave. And there's a job opening here."

"Oh?" A tiny smile tugged at Alex' lips.

Zechs wasn't sure whether Alex was laughing at him. Zero had woken up and buzzed quietly inside his mind, but it didn't surge, or push, or wash over him as it used to. He thought that it sat still, huddled rather than coiled up to spring at the slightest trigger, and he forbade himself to wonder why. "I can't do everything," he said crossly, "I'm looking for an estate manager."

xxx

Zechs didn't remember how they ended up in Treize's bed, but he smiled when Alex looked up at him, his hair sweaty and clinging to his forehead and temples, his face flushed, and his lips damp and parted as if in a silent, unending 'oh', before he went slack and sprawled out beneath Zechs' heavy weight. The pillows were bulging around them, the scent of fresh linen mingling with the smells of sweat and sex.

Alex wrapped his arms around Zechs and stroked his broad back. "Easter," he smiled, gaze hooded. "What, with your house full of people?"

Zechs shook his head. "Most years, nobody is here." A small pause, then, "Nobody comes here anymore."

Alex pulled at a strand of his hair. "That's your own fault. Look, about the job…"

"You thought it over?"

"I like teaching. I need to keep a bit of my own life."

Xxx


	7. Chapter 7

**7. Radio Babble**

**All warnings and disclaimer from chapter 1 apply. **

xxx

Alex had left a small radio for him. At first it seemed forgotten, and for a while Zechs didn't touch it. Then he heard Marimaia switch it on – a breach of her conditions of staying at the estate, but he let her. It seemed unreasonable, he thought, to try and confine her into a fishbowl of not-knowing, and all the same to expect her to understand and accept.

Then, one evening, he was sitting alone in the drawing room, the radio on the table before him. Marimaia had gone into the library to look at old pictures. Outside, it was raining, in driving gusts that battered the French doors, making the glass panes chitter.

The radio was a simple little box, grey plastic with a room antenna and a couple of old-fashioned tuning buttons. He turned it on and played idly with the buttons, scraps of music and talk buzzing past until a newschannel caught is attention. There was coverage of recent politics and talk about the colonies' efforts to become more independent from Earth.

_It never stops… Did you really not know this, Tre? How free can they be_ _when they need Earth, just to stay where they are? A push off their Lagrange anchors, and they're gone, dropping into the sun like flecks of ash… or crashing into Earth. What's the point?_

And when he found himself starting to follow the news again, he wondered whether Alex had really just forgotten about the radio. There was talk about the expansion of the terraforming project and irregularities in the awarding of construction contracts. Large interests – Winner's Corporation, the Catalonias' web of firms, and a new, old name – the Barton Foundation – were competing for the right to supply equipment and services to the project, while the Earth nations were preparing to elect their next President. With jaded non-surprise, Zechs registered that Dorothy was running against Relena.

_Quite like the Catalonias to fight – if not me, then someone else will do for target practice or serve as a cashcow. _

He recalled the latest correspondence he had received from Dorothy's lawyers, explaining that they were dropping their case, with the caveat that he should not construe this as his victory… They had settled for an uneasy truce since her lawyers had decided they could not win Treize's estate for her, and he had heard that she was in turn threatening them with a lawsuit for malpractice. He thought he recognised something of Treize in her, and it made him nauseous.

_What would_ you have _said about this, Tre? That Dorothy and her family now have bigger fish _to_ fry? That it takes a madman to know another? I'm sure you'd have understood. This is why you never liked her. _

And then he became aware of the same strange Zero buzz in his mind he had felt when Alex had come to see him. It was an oddly sharp, tugging current, and even as he braced himself to fight it down, it felt strangely pleasant and invigorating. Different from the painful blasts he used to suffer, he found himself welcoming its presence, the one he was used to and could deal with.

_Like greeting an old comrade…_

He realised that he was waiting, with the same odd mix of calm and impatience that he'd been waiting for Treize's decisions. And then, following an impulse, he did what he had never done before: he rang Relena on her private line. Beneath the joy of hearing him, she sounded tired when she answered. She talked about Easter. How she longed to see him, and that the heating was broken in her private rooms and how it took the tradesmen forever to mend it, and that the security checks slowed everything down even more.

"We had snow yesterday," she said, "again. The park looks lovely, as if dusted with sugar, but all the wild apple blossoms were too early this year. They're gone now." Her voice was firm, but her words touched him as lonely.

He barely remembered the park, surrounding the restored palace in Cinq's capital. For the first time since Alex' visit, Zechs felt something close to a bad conscience at having refused to support Relena. But to him, the place was eternally wrapped in smoke and the blazing hue of the palace on fire.

_It's one thing to live with my memories, and another to live through them, again and again…_

"Take a break," he said, "come to the estate."

Her reply was so prompt that he realised she'd been waiting for him to ask. "That would be great. I'll arrange things here. Thanks, Milliardo."

xxx


	8. Chapter 8

**8. A New Easter**

**All warnings and disclaimer from chapter 1 apply. **

**xxx  
><strong>

It wasn't quite true, Zechs thought, that nobody would visit: the house was full, even though he could not remember having invited anyone besides his sister. But Ann, Relena and Lucrezia arrived together. Relena hugged him; Ann shook his hand when he greeted her. Lucrezia just said hello. And then Yuy arrived, with wary-eyed Maxwell in tow. Zechs did his best to ignore either, although he thought that Maxwell looked much more mellow than he'd remembered him.

The aroma of coffee and tea wafted into the overheated hall where it mixed with gusts of frosty air every time the doors swung open. Soon the place was as cold as winter outside. Zechs did not bother showing anyone around. He locked himself into Treize's room and left them to roam the house to find suitable rooms. When they had brought in their luggage and settled, they went to gather in a noisy group in the library. He heard Marimaia, terse and tense, taking her leave to retreat to her bedroom. Someone put an old vinyl on – tacky Russian folk-pop. He smelled cigarettes and wondered, with passing curiosity, who was smoking, but it didn't bother him enough to get up and find out.

_It's just too much, all of them here, each with a different agenda…_

He was oddly grateful that Dorothy had decided against a visit, although she had sent frosty season greetings, almost like a reminder that she wasn't done.

xxx

A couple of times, there were light steps and a reluctant knock on his door, but he stayed where he was – safe in Treize's bed, childishly protecting himself with duvets and featherdown.

He waited until the morning before venturing out.

Yuy and Maxwell calmly stood by the front door. Yuy was drinking tea from a flask, Maxwell – no longer mellow – kept his eyes on the driveway and the winter-white surroundings of the old house. Gauging them, Zechs had no doubt that they had been carefully chosen for this assignment, out of a crowd of specialists, the best of the Preventer units, and – no matter how discreet – they looked the part. It reassured him, for Relena's sake. For a moment, Yuy met his gaze. Zechs stared back until Yuy turned away to blow over his half-cold tea. Maxwell did not bother to look, sure that Yuy was covering his back, and certainly aware of Zechs.

_Good dog. You have to know when to growl. Always been the smarter one…_

Without a word, Zechs stepped past them into the frost-glittering day. The sky was pale grey, melting into the snow-covered earth on the horizon, hues of white speckled with black where bare-branched trees fingered the blanket of cloud.

It gave him a small measure of satisfaction that he saw the tiny, marching figure first, before Maxwell's soft grunt at Yuy. A man, sinking in to the calves of his boots with every step as he struggled through the compacted snow on the driveway,. His breath formed a thick cloud around his head, but he walked fast, with a bounce in his step, almost cheerful as if to burst into song any moment-

Zechs felt an odd tug in his chest. _Alex._

"Hi!" Alex laughed, waved, and then – still out of Zechs' reach – he dropped his backpack and wiped his brow. "You must be freezing!"

Zechs shrugged. "Why are you on foot?"

"Ah! I wanted to walk! There is so much space here. More space than in space! I still can't believe it. And no dust!" Alex' face was flushed bright red from the exertion, and every word seemed to have an exclamation mark.

Zechs gave him a smile. "You should see the house."

Alex reached him, and for a moment, they stared at each other. Alex radiated excitement, but his eyes were clear and his gaze expectant, a touch wary perhaps. "You think this is a good idea?" he broke the sudden silence.

"What?"

Alex nodded at the door. "You have guests?"

"I'm sure you'd not be allowed anywhere close if Ann hadn't vetted you," Zechs replied, deliberately missing the point.

Xxx

Une caught Zechs as he was crossing the vestibule to get some coffee from the kitchen.

"I heard you're keeping falcons again?" she asked, her voice soft, not matching her expression. He thought that she was wearing her mission face – cool and determined, not the trace of a smile – and that it made her look old.

He paused. "A breeding pair. You want to see them?"

"Please."

They wrapped up and went to the stables. It was snowing from an undetermined, washed-grey sky, the light wintry, somewhere between dusk and dark.

"What do you want?" Zechs asked as he tugged a large leather glove on, for the falcons to sit on his hand. The birds shifted on their perches. He took a bag of chopped rabbit meat from a box under the window and held out a smelly, half-frozen morsel.

There was an indoor space, separated by wire-mesh from the horses he had bought to fill the estate with life again, and the purpose-built aviary Treize had planned so that it butted against the stable buildings. One of the birds flapped its wings.

Une watched as Zechs opened the wire-mesh door to their cage and began to feed them. "Have you been listening to the news?"

And suddenly it became clear to him what had happened. The bird hopped onto his hand, ducking for another scrap of meat. Zechs fed it, and then, with his blood-smeared hand, stroked its silky feathers. "Alex did a great job," he said, without bitterness.

"Don't be disappointed. He loves you."

"I should have known it was your idea. You're good at deals. What was it, allowing him to break off his Mars assignment for roping me back in?"

"He wanted to see you. It was an opportunity. And don't tell me I should have just asked."

He turned to look at her. She met his gaze firmly, unrepentant.

"I won't," he said. He slipped the cap and bell over the falcon's head and nodded at the door. "Let's see whether he can find something."

He turned and heard her voice behind him, calm and dry. "You know that Lucrezia has given birth?"

He froze, his throat suddenly tight. Une never joked. He remembered that awkward night, the only one he'd spent with Lucrezia1. It had pushed them apart in a strange, lingering way, the former, friendly intimacy replaced by the joint knowledge of what had happened. He had regretted and then accepted it without much thought.

_Strange how easy that was. No grief. Nothing, really._

"Twins," Une said, "a girl and a boy."

He pulled the cap off the bird's eyes and thrust his fist into the air. The falcon took off like a missile. For a while, he watched it soar until it was only a tiny speck in the grey sky, heavy with snow, and then it began to sweep into a wide arch.

He felt tired. "Are you sure you didn't clone a little Treize?"

"We could have, you know. Taken his genome from the samples in the military lab archives and replicated it."

He drew up his shoulders, disgust and longing tugging at him with sudden, frightening intensity. "What do you want, Ann? That I do the decent thing? Why bother to drag Alex into this? Because of his looks?"

She leaned against the post opposite him. "That was before we realised. You know that Lucrezia's brother looks almost like you, don't you?"

He shrugged. "With a few tugs and pulls, perhaps."

"You have listened to the news. There is… unrest up there, on Mars. We need a firm hand, someone with the right experience, to keep it on track."

"You want to turn it into a military operation."

She pushed her hands into her pockets. "But we can't risk you. A small step. Just a little paperwork, you know that. But we're not quite there yet, and we're not keen on it. Too expensive."

"You want a counterweight to Winner and the Catalonia business."

"There should be a balance. If things shift out of balance, we end up fighting wars."

He snorted. "Isn't it always the same?"

Une stepped towards him and took his arm, a friendly, gentle gesture that surprised and rankled him, but before he could snap at her, she said, "Come, let me explain. We can walk a bit… How are you feeling?"

He looked at her warily. "I'm fine."

"I mean, how are you dealing with the system?"

And then it struck him. The constant buzz, energising instead of violent, draining bursts. The sensation of recovering his balance, his strength of dealing with the world at large. The sudden clarity, as if a veil had been dropped and the muted colours of his life had gained a fresh brilliance.

"Ah," he said, "I see. I am this… piece of kit, right? Too difficult to operate, too dangerous to be left on the shelf, with a limited lifespan, too expensive to waste."

She squeezed his arm. "Aren't we all just kit?"

"What makes you think that Mars won't be your next colony?"

She drew a deep, tight breath. "It mustn't happen that way. We, you, have to try."

xxx

They wandered along the well-used road towards the airstrip in the forest. Between the trees, it was still save for the crunching of their boots. It had began to snow again, in thick soft flakes that seemed to fall from an endless sky.

_As if the entire world was melting into this whiteness… I'll have to check whether the dacha is still winterproof… Our last few days together…_

He stopped and pressed his fist against his chest. His breathing came in harsh white puffs. He wanted to hit himself, bang against his heart that stubbornly refused to be quiet, that kept on thudding and urging him on, and on, and on…

Une laid her hand over his. "I'll talk with Alex," she said quietly. "He'll understand. He'll wait."

Zechs met her gaze. "Who else will be involved?" She did not reply, and he shook his head. "Time," he said, "does not change anything. Those… people… I tried to think of reasons to forgive. I've run through a catalogue of reasons. The truth is that I don't want to, and that I won't. And I don't expect any forgiveness for what I've done, either."

She swallowed, and her eyes held his firmly. "I know," she said quietly. "I know."

Xxx

The falcon had caught a snow rabbit. It was still twitching, and Zechs twisted its neck to finish it off. Ann turned away at the slight crunching of bones. Zechs cut the rabbit open, the snow melting where the warm blood soaked into it. He fed the steaming liver to the bird that ate greedily. With a piece of twine, Zechs tied the blood-stained carcass to his belt. He slipped the cap over the bird's head.

"Ann? Are you alright?"

"I don't like hunting," she said, tilting up her face to look at the sky.

"No?" He watched a few thick, fluffy snowflakes land on her skin and melt almost instantly.

She turned towards him. "Not anymore. Please, let's go back."

xxx

They met Alex in the yard; he held a brush and smelled of horses. He smiled, his breath white in the thickening dusk. Une excused herself, and Zechs put the bird into its cage, then started to skin and gut the rabbit. When he was done, Alex had gone inside.

Xxx

1 LA Starshine – A Distant Place


	9. Chapter 9

**9. Trust**

**All warnings and disclaimer from chapter 1 apply. **

xxx**  
><strong>

"Perhaps," Ann said, "you should talk to Lucrezia."

"Have you agreed the script?"

She touched his arm. "Please."

He met her gaze. "I wish… sometimes I wish…"

"I know." She squeezed his arm briefly before letting go. "You have to excuse me now; I have brought some work with me."

"Won't you tell me?"

She paused. "It wasn't planned, although it does help."

"Knowing your enemies' weaknesses to exploit them?"

"You are not my enemy."

He watched her go upstairs to her room. He could feel the snow melt on his shoulders. The coat felt clammy and uncomfortable. Slowly he brushed it down, put the coat on its hanger, and took off his boots.

_Adversaries might be a better word. Yes, that's it. We've always been competing. _

Through a gap in the door, he caught a glimpse of Marimaia sitting by the French doors. She did not seem to be doing anything, her hands folded in her lap, her back to him. Perhaps, he thought, she was watching the snow fall. There was no snow on the colonies, and on Mars there were only dust and ice storms.

From upstairs, he heard the rushing of a shower. He wondered whether that was Alex, taking a bath, and an odd emptiness filled his chest.

_A new start… what a silly idea, for people like us..._

The house was quiet, as if everyone had fallen silent at once. He went to get coffee, made with hot water from the huge, plain samovar in the kitchen, and then wandered to the library.

Lucrezia stood by the window, her arms folded, her semi-profile outlined against the light-grey square. She turned and met his gaze with a thin smile. "Hello Zechs."

He closed the door. "Hello Lucrezia."

There was a small break, before she said, "I should have told you sooner. I should have apologised."

He set the cup down on the old piano. "I'll try to be a good father. A good… husband, if you want that."

"I didn't plan this."

He sat down at the piano. "I shouldn't have given in." He laid his fingers onto the keys and began to play.

"Claire de Lune," she murmured.

"The first tune my mother taught me." _A children's tune, light and easy, something to start with..._ Suddenly, he felt bare. He broke off the tune, closed the lid of the piano, and got up. "I never thought that I'd have children."

_What would you say to this, Tre? Will it help me to understand you – this last, most hurtful lie of yours? When I played this for the first time, you listened without me realising, and when I did… I told you I wished that I could cry, and you just… folded. When was that? After the Victoria Academy got pulverised and your mother had died, and you'd finally run out of excuses to avoid going home, to Russia. Her stuff was all still in the house, untouched, like a shrine. People can be strange – she'd been ruling the estate like a merchant queen, I'd never heard her say a gentle word to anyone but us, but people seemed to love her. No, wrong. They venerated her, like one of those gilt icons in the church…. _

She stared at him. "They refused my application to be discharged. I've been posted to the Mars project. A special mission, with you." She drew a deep, tight breath. "Do you even know what's going on up there? It's not how I wanted to bring up my children."

He ran his fingertips over the smooth, yellowed ivory keys. "Ironic, isn't it – we'll be colonists, in a way."

She swallowed hard. "Zechs…"

"Time," he said, closing the lid of the piano. "It will need time."

_As if time could do anything for us… Perhaps that's why you did it – sometimes it's kinder to lie. I remember… Instead of comforting you, all those people came to you for comfort, and they all wanted something. The priests wanted to make sure you'd keep giving money to their church, and the village wanted the same, and old Catalonia was looking for Dorothy to get a share of the inheritance… It was the only time I'd seen you fall… and when that awful day was finally over, we were alone in the library, and you held me as if you wanted to crush the life out of me and said nothing…_

She stepped closer. "I have… pictures." She laid a small wallet onto the piano. It was open, and Zechs saw a colour holograph of her, in a summer dress printed with large red poppies, the same she had worn that incongruously happy day at the estate1. She was sitting on a picnic rug, a basket by her side, on a patch of sunspeckled meadow. Leaning forward, she seemed preoccupied watching, and there were two small children – one in her lap, another crawling towards the basket. They wore little, frilly summer hats of white fabric and tiny, puffy shorts – one blue, the other one pink and ruffled.

"Her name is Naina, and his is Milou," she said. "Ann took that picture in the park, at your sister's place."

He looked down at the holograph. For a long while, the room was silent, and he could hear the blood rushing in his ears, and he felt a weight ease off his chest. Breathing became easier, as if he'd stepped out of the pressurised pilot's capsule of a Mobile Suit and cast off the tight suit and rigid helmet, his heart still pounding with the elation of a kill.

He clenched his hands. _I have children. _

He had no doubt that it was true – Une would have made sure of it, knowing he would check anyway. And he was not sure at all what he should be feeling, beyond this lightness in his chest.

Xxx

He met Marimaia on his way upstairs, as she stepped out of Une's room.

"I'm not sure if I'll miss you," she said, folding her arms.

"I don't think you will."

"You're probably right," she said. "I should never have believed anything you said."

Xxx

He felt like running, running, running without ever having to stop; but no matter how fast and how far he ran, the past would not let go of him. The echo of his own words hounded him as his turned sleeplessly in Treize's bed.

He rolled onto his back and stared up at the white-painted ceiling. When they had been children, there had been patterns stencilled and hand-painted on it: mythical beasts, dragons and dragon slayers, Ilya Muromez the hero of legend, Baba Yaga and her chicken-leg hut, the firebird, Koshchey the Immortal with his black heart hidden in an eggshell…

And then he remembered what Treize had said after his disastrous mission to L3.

_You had been laughing about some silly joke Ann had made, then you were singing Katyusha together, and it sounded quite good. But when she had left, you fell silent, looking out across the meadow. In spring, it was looking straggly and yellow, the first tender grass only starting to poke through the soggy soil. Before I clocked it, you were saying my name. "Miliusha. Milushka…"_

"_Don't call me that. I'm fourteen."_

_Another silence. Those godawful silences, I hated them…_

_And then your voice, so quiet, I almost missed it. "There was a time, up there, when the future had disappeared. It was so… simple, it was frightening. The only thing that I remembered was something I hadn't told you yet. I needed you to know…" You looked at me then, and I couldn't read that look at first – clouded, distant, strange. You looked… old. "I needed to tell you that I love you. More than I have words for. More than anything."_

_And there it was. The shock… I remember that it shocked me, although I should have known… but what do we know when we are fourteen? We think we know everything, and therein lies our ignorance…_

He thought of Marimaia, and felt a twinge of something resembling compassion. He didn't fight it because it soothed him in an odd way, and he finally fell asleep.

xxx

1 Lightning Arc 1 - Burning


	10. Chapter 10

**10. Onwards**

**All warnings and disclaimer from chapter 1 apply. **

xxx**  
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It was quiet in the dining room, the talk and laughter from the library muffled by two solid doors. Zechs put a bottle and two glasses onto the table while Alex was taking off boots and coat. He came into the room rubbing his hands, in socks, rollneck jumper and corduroys, his cheeks and nose flushed from the cold. He sat down and waited for Zechs to pour the drinks.

After a moment, he cleared his throat. "Are you angry?"

Zechs glanced at him. "You did your job."

"I didn't want to lie to you."

Zechs thought that he wasn't his usual self. "I've been in the business for too long," he said, surprising himself at how calm he felt. "You got yourself the position here. You'll handle the estate and keep track of Marimaia; I'll go back to the project. It's a great fit."

"I'm sorry," Alex said miserably.

"Did you know?"

Alex shook his head. "I wanted to see you. They offered me a chance." He paused, as if looking for the right words. "Is that it?" he asked at last.

Zechs met his gaze. It didn't hurt as much as he'd feared, but it hurt more than he'd expected. "Trust," he said quietly, "It would have helped."

Alex broke away to stare into his drink. There was a long silence before he spoke. "Will you marry her? Lucrezia?"

Zechs dropped into his chair and reached for the bottle. "I'll do whatever is necessary."

_One night,_ he thought uncomfortably. _Twins. Is that why she wanted to sleep with me? And you, Tre – did you really not know about Marimaia? In any case, I want to do this differently. Better._

Alex raised his glass, and tossed the drink back in one gulp.

After the third drink, Zechs glared at him. "You never ask."

Alex shook his head. "Should I? Does it matter?"

Zechs wrapped his hands around the glass. "Why not?"

Alex glanced out of the French doors. Around the bird fountain on the meadow, a few crows were pecking in the snow for crumbs. "Well, perhaps it does. The rumours… I had a crush on you ever since getting close to you. Endless lectures, field work, exams… the whole Mars thing…"

"Maybe that's all there's to it."

_That environment, the pressure, the stress – no privacy, no real break, and always on the brink of an emergency… yes, perhaps that was it._

Alex shook his head. "I had to get drunk to have the balls to ask you out. And then…" He turned back to look at Zechs with a subdued smile. "This revelation, you know."

"Revelation?"

Alex leaned forward and refilled their glasses once more. He set the bottle down with a hard clonk. The vodka sloshed against the clear glass like water caught in ice.

"That you were quite normal."

Zechs stared at him.

Alex leaned back, glass in hand. "You need to move on."

"And what would you know about that?"

Alex saluted him. "My family have thrown me out. Perhaps time will help."

There was a long pause before Zechs drew a deep breath. "It doesn't."

"Yes, it does." Alex drank, then set his glass onto the table with the careful gesture of someone who had drunk too much. "Where is the bathroom?"

xxx

They took a plate with black bread and butter from the kitchen, and a plastic bowl because Alex felt queasy, and Zechs unlocked Treize's room. They put bowl and plate down by the bedside and left their clothes where they fell.

"I can't do anything," Alex grunted when they dropped into the down bedding.

"I'm too drunk," Zechs said, and they both chuckled.

Alex turned his back. His words were slurred when he said, "This is the first time I've seen you like that."

"Like what?"

"Not… unhappy."

Zechs hesitated, listening to Alex' breathing, and pushing through the fog of drunkenness he felt a strange mix of loss and reassurance.

_And why would this be?_

He slid his arm across Alex' arm until he could lay his hand against Alex' chest to feel his heartbeat. He put his face against Alex' hair. It smelled of coarse tobacco, soot and a bit of sweat – a warm, homely smell, and suddenly longing tore at him, ripping into his mind with breathtaking force. He pressed hard.

"Ouch," Alex gasped quietly, and then Zechs felt Alex' hand settling on his. It was a firm touch, confident without being possessive.

It confused him, and he pulled back. Alex rolled onto his stomach, pulled the pillow under his shoulders, and soon he was snoring quietly. Zechs watched him.

_Why does it have to be so complicated? Is it? And was it like that with us? No, scratch that. We were in a different league, weren't we? Complicated to the power of ten. And yet, it's all quite simple when you forget about thinking… all this thinking… wanting to know… do we really have to know everything? It's so tiring._

xxx

_Zechs stared at Treize who, still in Zechs' morning gown whose sleeves were a touch too long for him, was sitting in the cool sunlight of the early morning. The French doors of the drawing room stood open, the ashes on the hearth were cold, and the smell of cold apple wood smoke suffused the room. Treize had arrived after the funeral of his mother was over1, the family and visitors had gone, and the house was silent. It hadn't stopped word to go out that he was back, and a steady trickle of visitors disturbed the quiet he was seeking. He had not complained but dealt with every plea for help, money or comfort with apparently endless patience._

"_Sometimes I feel as if I didn't know you at all," Zechs flung at him._

_Treize glanced up. Zechs wore a sloppy grey tee and jeans, arms crossed, hair unkempt and wound into an untidy knot at the nape of his neck. His face was drawn and haggard, his posture resembled a living exclamation mark, but the impression was softened by the bunched blanket he clutched against his chest. _

_Treize smiled. "And I? Do I know you?" _

"_Yes." Prompt, like a bullet._

_Treize shook his head, his gaze slipping to the line of trees at the edge of the meadow. "Sometimes…" His voice faded, he cleared his throat and started again, "I love you… so much that sometimes-"_

"_It gets in the way?"_

_Treize looked up again; for a moment, they glared at each other, then Treize swallowed. "Yes," he admitted reluctantly._

_Zechs dropped an envelope into Treize's lap. "I kept this for you."_

_Treize opened it. A dry rose was inside, and in the faded yellow tones he could see darker speckles and stripes on white petals. Red and white._

"_It was the first one that year you didn't come back."_

"_I am back."_

"_Are you?" Zechs paused, unfolding his arms. His fingers dug into the blanket. "Why won't you let me-"_

"_Last night," Treize cut in, closing the envelope over the rose, "I tried to kiss you."_

_It had been a tender, yielding kiss and embrace, it had felt oddly soft, unlike Treize – and Zechs, irritated and anxious, had stoked him until it had been as always – fast, heated, rough, a few moments to forget everything else._

"_Why do you want this?" Treize went on. "To prove something? To change something? What if you don't like the change?"_

"_Nothing will change because I screw you once in a while."_

_A small, lopsided smile curved Treize's lips. "No?"_

"_No."_

"_Then what's the point?"_

"_This isn't something for your logic," Zechs burst out, feeling tricked. "It's no big deal."_

_Treize shrugged. "Then why does it bother you so much?"_

_Zechs reddened. For a moment, he looked ready to explode, but then he only sagged a little. "I don't know. It just does." He roughly draped the blanket around Treize's shoulders. "Somehow, it doesn't feel fair."_

xxx

Zechs woke from the busy dripping of water onto the wooden window ledge outside. Vague light filled the room, without reaching the corners. He turned his head until he could see: Frost still patterned the window panes, but it was becoming transparent. He guessed that the icicles dangling from the carved eaves were finally starting to melt.

_An odd thing, forgiveness. And trust. What a grand concept. You could forgive, Tre; I'm not so sure about trust. How did you make it look so easy? Is that what you meant by love? _

For a while, he lay still under the soft down duvet. Alex was close and warm, and Zechs closed his eyes for a moment to will away everything but the sensation of skin to skin. Alex's breathing was even and slow. Zechs shifted until he could watch him sleep. Alex lay half on his stomach, half on his side, the pillow-corner bunched into a roll under his neck. His mouth was slack, expressionless, drooling a little. Zechs slid his arm across Alex' back and around, against his chest. He pressed against him as he started to stroke Alex' nipple until it perked. He let his fingers wander down Alex' flank, slip across the back of Alex' thigh and between his legs. He listened to Alex' breathing hitch, then a soft sigh, almost a groan.

_It made… makes me feel small, all that resentment, but without it, what would be left of me? Perhaps I can forgive you now. That would be… nice, I guess._

Zechs shifted until he was on top of Alex, and pushed his legs apart. Sleepily, Alex groped for purchase and grasped the edge of the bed. Zechs shoved the pillow under Alex' belly to raise his hips, and leaned down until Alex bore his full weight.

It was slow and hard, wordless and laced with grunts and panting, until Alex tensed with a belly-deep, shuddering groan, and Zechs bit him on the back of the neck, holding him fast as if to crush him. Spent, they fell apart. For a moment, Zechs lay still, catching his breath, eyes closed as the aftershocks of release throbbed through him.

Alex pulled the pillow from under his stomach and bunched it under his neck again. "It wasn't about the job," he said into the sudden stillness. His voice was muffled and unhappy.

"I know." Zechs sat up. The bare, waxed floorboards felt cold against the soles of his feet. He curled his toes. "I know how it works."

Alex rolled onto his back and propped himself up on his elbows. "I was in a squeeze."

"Yes." _And I'm in no position to judge anyone._

"You and the General – did you trust each other?"

"What, you want me to discuss hearsay?"

"They showed me a file."

"And that proves what?"

Alex shook his head and fell back into the pillows. He stared at the ceiling. "I didn't want a one-night stand. I wanted to live with you."

Zechs half-turned and leaned down, hovering over him. For a moment, they stared at each other, until Zechs said, "I know." He kissed Alex. "We should have left it with a quick screw."

"Is that all _you_ want?"

"We can't always have what we want."

"How is it, to have that… thing in your head?"

"What?"

"The system. Zero."

Zechs pushed back and bent to fish for his socks among the clothes that lay in a messy pile by the bed. "I don't know what kind of rubbish they fed you when they scoped you out."

"That's the problem, isn't it?"

Zechs got up to tug his trousers on and close his belt. "What problem?"

"That you keep looking over your shoulder, all the goddamn time." Alex pushed back the warm duvet and rose. He shivered in the cold room – so cold that his breath formed a faint plume and his skin went prickly with goosebumps – and began to dress quickly: long flannels, a thick woolly jumper, corduroys.

Zechs paused to watch him move. Alex looked homely, Zechs thought, in a nice, grounding way. Knowing that there was a twist, that he was most but not all he seemed, added a certain spiciness. It made Zechs want to forget everything else and just stay in bed and do it all over again, feel the skin under all those layers, feel muscles shift and tense and push back, hold on, until he felt firmly, securely rooted – like a tree in the rich, black earth of what had become his home. A tree that would grow and spread, no matter how many storms might shake it…

He reached out, touching Alex' hand. "It comes with the job, doesn't it?"

"I wouldn't know," Alex said bitterly. "I wish I'd said no when they asked me. I had no idea…"

"Really?"

Alex bit his lip. "You know, I can see your point. Perhaps in the end we all turn out like that. What do you want me to do now?"

Zechs slipped into a long-sleeved, ex-issue tee, pushed his hand behind his neck and under his hair and flicked it out with an absentminded, routine gesture. "I don't know," he said, "just… let it rest."

"I could wait. If there was a chance."

"I'll be in touch," Zechs said, not quite as sure as he wanted to be. "The estate…"

Alex gave him a faded smile. "Sure."

There was a small break. Zechs took an elastic band from his jeans pocket and tied his hair into an untidy knot at the nape of his neck.

He let Alex lean against him. For a moment or two, there was nothing else. It felt good to be like this, in this cold, silent room that held nothing but their breathing and their heartbeat, filling with the first light of a late spring.

"I wish you'd stay," Alex said. "Or that I could come with you."

Zechs pulled back and met Alex' gaze. "You can't."

Alex sat down on the edge of the bed to pull on thick, knitted socks. "I know."

Zechs bent and touched his brow to Alex' forehead. "Take care. And whatever you hear, don't believe it until you hear it from me."

And that, he thought as he left the house to sling his backpack into Une's jeep, had to be enough. Lucrezia sat on one of the backseats. She avoided looking at him but stared out at the snow-dusted meadows and bare forest, the first hints of green adding a touch of spring to the wintry browns and greys and whites.

Zechs looked back as Une started the engine. Alex stood in the door, his arms folded. Only when the jeep was almost out of sight did he raise his hand. Zechs laid his hand against the windowpane.

There would have to be trust.

Trust meant waiting.

And waiting meant there had to be hope.

xxx

The End

1 Lightning Arc 1 - Burning


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